If Redskins fans who love the team’s name were looking for sympathetic local radio voices on Wednesday, they found some on ESPN 980′s The Drive With Cooley and Czabe. Former Redskins tight end Chris Cooley, longtime local host Steve Czaban and third man Al Galdi spent the opening segment of their three-hour show making fun of white sportswriters who have championed the name change cause and arguing that the team name is secure.

Cooley: That want to take a stand. It’s a stance.
Czaban: It’s a cause. They need a cause to feel good about themselves. They will then say it doesn’t matter if it’s 70, 80 percent — if one person is offended, then that’s enough.

Cooley: You know what, Steve? We need a cause. You and I need a cause. And you know what that cause is going to be? I don’t like the Chargers because I want to protect the ozone, all right guys? I feel like there’s a global warming issue, and I don’t like the name Chargers, because they’re promoting electricity. Eff electricity, and eff the Chargers name. I have a problem with them. All I’ve got to do is a pamphlet and 10 percent of a couple people and maybe a Senator or two that wants to protect the ozone and we’re off and running.

Galdi: Call Olbermann. Call Deadspin.

Cooley: I don’t want just money; I want power too. I want to create power with this. I want to create a name for myself out of this. This is for me

On what would happen if the Redskins win on appeal

Cooley: Here’s what it will do: It will create an end to the Redskins publicly saying anything about keeping the name. They’ll let anyone else say whatever they want about it. They’ll let the Oneida tribe say anything, they’ll let anyone that wants to bash the name say anything. But as soon as our court system rules — which is, in my opinion, likely… — it ends what we have to say to them. Now all we do is go out to these reservations and we believe in what we do and create goodwill and continue to work with our Native Americans in building their tribes back up to what they want to be, and we don’t say anything.

On the alternatives

Czaban: The only good counter argument is to say as soon as the Kansas City Chiefs and the Cleveland Indians and the Florida State Seminoles all want to do this then we’d certainly listen to them if they want us to join their movement to change their names….[Otherwise] say we’ll be the Washington Chiefs and paint a more racist picture on the side of the helmets, a buck-toothed Native American that says Chiefs. It won’t say Redskins, but it’ll be a really ugly Native American. It will not be a proud, dignified Native American. It’ll be very cartoonish, like Chief Wahoo, with a big buck-toothed smile.
Cooley: Chiefs and spell it wrong. Put the [e before the i]…..No, I think if, God forbid, they were forced to change the name, they should just change it to the Smurfs. Something just out there. And then make the Smurf a little Indian Smurf, a red Smurf.

On liberal sports media members

Czaban: [They're] going to dance around like in the final scene of Star Wars, like they just defeated the evil empire. Go ahead dance around and do whatever it does that assuages your white liberal guilt but nothing has changed, nothing will change. This is the biggest nothingburger story ever….Maybe we can get therapy for [them], chip in, get to the core of their guilt and understand what is it that’s nagging you.

Cooley: Well because they all understand how it feels. They all know what it means.

Czaban: Sure they do. They were all the subject of hardship and prejudice growing up.

Cooley: Right. They get it.

Czaban: All…those white privileged upper class members of the sports media. Yes. They’re down with the struggle.

UPDATE: The National Congress of American Indians responded to Cooley’s comments — calling them dehumanizing and offensive — in a press release:

Chris Cooley’s comments represent a sadly typical attempt to dehumanize Native Americans by pretending we do not exist. In this case, Mr. Cooley insultingly pretends that the Native American groups representing hundreds of thousands of Native Americans haven’t been leading the fight to end the Washington team’s use of a racial slur. In this Mr. Cooley proves exactly why this slur is such a problem – in defending the team’s insistence to retain the name and profit off a racial slur, he apparently sees Native Americans not as people, but as mere mascots to be ignored and denigrated. These kinds of degrading comments are completely inappropriate and unacceptable in today’s society, and we as Native peoples should not be subject to such characterizations.

I'm not sure if people insulting Cooley because they disagree with his stance on the Redskins name change or if they're taking his obvious satire at face value.

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Obvious satire?........ more like an extremely lame and sad attempt to make a serious issue (an NFL team name that's a racial insult) into a joke.

Bringing the Chargers into the equation makes no sense, as does his "electricity causes global warming" inference. It's pure unadulterated BS, and please, if you don't like the fact that you played for a team that insulted an ethic group, than tough . Grow the **** up.

Bringing the Chargers into the equation makes no sense, as does his "electricity causes global warming" inference. It's pure unadulterated BS, and please, if you don't like the fact that you played for a team that insulted an ethic group, than tough . Grow the **** up.

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It's not supposed to make sense. That's the point of hyperbolic satire.

By the way, I'm not saying I agree with his argument or his argumentative style. I've been spending the past few days on facebook arguing against similar arguments, but I at least get what he's really saying.

Just because it's classless or misguided doesn't mean it's not satire.

It's not supposed to make sense. That's the point of hyperbolic satire.

By the way, I'm not saying I agree with his argument or his argumentative style. I've been spending the past few days on facebook arguing against similar arguments, but I at least get what he's really saying.

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You do?....... please explain how belittling someone else's legitimate grievance is either appropriate or funny? Cooley just sounds like a stereotypical jock, insensitive and none too bright. Thank goodness, not all athletes are so "clueless and misguided."

The Kansas City football team will now be known as the Tribal Leaders. The baseball team from Cleveland will now be the Native Peoples, and the Atlanta baseball team will now be known as the Feathered Militia... The football team from Minnesota will just be the Horny Norsemen, and San Franciscans can rejoice in their new team, the Drunken Miners...

Just because it's classless or misguided doesn't mean it's not satire.

It's not supposed to make sense. That's the point of hyperbolic satire.

By the way, I'm not saying I agree with his argument or his argumentative style. I've been spending the past few days on facebook arguing against similar arguments, but I at least get what he's really saying.

You do?....... please explain how belittling someone else's legitimate grievance is either appropriate or funny? Cooley just sounds like a stereotypical jock, insensitive and none too bright. Thank goodness, not all athletes are so "clueless and misguided."

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I didn't say it was appropriate or funny. I just said that I get that that was his intent.

The argument against the Chiefs, Braves and Seminoles doesn't compare. Fill in the blank with any of the other team names and you don't get quite the same effect yeah? (except on Sundays I suppose)

Hey, you ******* ________!

Redskin is a racial slur, the intent of the word is to insult and belittle. Being a Chief or a Brave or a Seminole is not. As for the Cleveland Indians, I'd put it more in the same category as the Redskins. While the name is not as blatantly offensive I do believe, as a society, we know better and should do better. Early Europeans thought they landed an India and thus had "discovered" Indians. I think we've had enough time to assimilate the knowledge that they were mistaken.

As for mascots/logos, that's a bit more complex - in the sense that mascots are generally meant to be cartoonish, and often fill a court jester/fool type role - but when you make a caricature of something, particularly a race of people, it's a fine line between harmless fun and degrading. I can appreciate the intelligent choice (whether it was made altruistically or not) that the Braves took to move away from the goofy native american caricature. While the Indians still use a questionable grinning native american both mascots have nothing to do with Native American stereotypes and the Braves focus now is more on the A for Atlanta, using simply a tomahawk with the Braves name.

In San Diego there was a similar issue with Monty Montezuma and it's an excellent example of that fine line. I feel like, at least at this point, the Aztecs are represented by SDSU with pride and honor. Not mockery.

Someone can argue all they like that the Redskins are a "great" tradition and aren't hurting anyone, it'll never be a valid argument. It'd be like if the Padres had gone a different route when naming their team and instead we rooted for the San Diego Wetbacks. I don't give two shits if people in the 30's 40's or 50's thought it was acceptable when they branded the team. In those days people also thought it was OK to segregate blacks, practiced blatant antisemitism and smoked like chimneys while pregnant. Native American groups have been fighting against this name for 50 years, while the struggle may be new to us nationally it's not something that just suddenly became offensive because it's politically incorrect. It's always been offensive. It's just now far more people are aware, are acknowledging it and are choosing to speak up.

My only thing about it is that the face of the movement appears to be white instead Native American and that's where it loses it's tread. I understand both sides of the argument, I truly do. My only issue is that the loudest voice in the argument against needs to be a Native American and not Bob Costas. That irritates me. I'm bi-racial and the last thing I will ever understand is a white man speaking on the feelings and ambitions of an ethnic group he isn't apart of. I'm not Native American or of any decent to my knowledge so I keep my mouth shut on issues that don't involve White or Black folk. That doesn't by any stretch of the imagination mean I condone it. It just means I let people speak for themselves. It's not like Native Americans can't come together and make a show of solidarity.

And when Dan Snyder is bringing out Native Americans at the game who say they have no problem with it, I'm even more inclined stand down. When there's a united front, there will be guaranteed action.

It's like if a white person were to lead the charge against the N-word being used in any way shape form or fashion by anyone. It would just look weird considering the irony and I'm not sure the Black community would be so quick to get behind that person being the face of a pro-Black movement.

I can't speak for everybody but that's where I sit on it. Yeah, I know the name is kinda messed up but I don't see people rushing out to change the name of Oklahoma.

And when Dan Snyder is bringing out Native Americans at the game who say they have no problem with it, I'm even more inclined stand down. When there's a united front, there will be guaranteed action.

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And the NAACP was going to give an award to Donald Sterling before the story blew up....... even after, a black pastor was embracing him. Whomever Snyder chooses to parade out is hardly representative of the feelings of Native Americans as a whole. When was it ever necessary for an entire ethnic group to have an issue with something before action is taken? The surviving Native American population is not that huge to begin with, as a percentage of the overall population.

When something is defined as a racial slur in the dictionary, that should be evidence enough. There really aren't legitimate grounds in favor of keeping the name. Tradition is the lamest excuse of all.

And the NAACP was going to give an award to Donald Sterling before the story blew up....... even after, a black pastor was embracing him. Whomever Snyder chooses to parade out is hardly representative of the feelings of Native Americans as a whole. When was it ever necessary for an entire ethnic group to have an issue with something before action is taken? The surviving Native American population is not that huge to begin with, as a percentage of the overall population.

When something is defined as a racial slur in the dictionary, that should be evidence enough. There really aren't legitimate grounds in favor of keeping the name. Tradition is the lamest excuse of all.

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Donald Sterling's situation is a bad comparison and way worse in my opinion.

And don't confuse me with a supporter of the name. Just don't. I'm just playing my own ball. I elect to fight my own fights. No matter what the Native American population is in comparison to the whole, it doesn't mean they can not unite on the issue despite their size. Using the "if one person is offended" logic doesn't get applied across the board on other issues and that is painfully obvious. Plus the fact that it can be turned on itself, which is the biggest roadblock.

Far as I'm concerned flying confederate flags in the south is just as bad if not worse than all of this. The grounds behind that? Tradition. Funny thing is I'm willing to bet a lot of white folk in the south who are "outraged" by the name redskins and say tradition is a lame excuse will use tradition to defend that flag still being flown in Mississippi. Rebel flags need to go in the same direction as all Of this. But that's another discussion.

Donald Sterling's situation is a bad comparison and way worse in my opinion.

And don't confuse me with a supporter of the name. Just don't. I'm just playing my own ball. I elect to fight my own fights. No matter what the Native American population is in comparison to the whole, it doesn't mean they can not unite on the issue despite their size. Using the "if one person is offended" logic doesn't get applied across the board on other issues and that is painfully obvious. Plus the fact that it can be turned on itself, which is the biggest roadblock.

Far as I'm concerned flying confederate flags in the south is just as bad if not worse than all of this. The grounds behind that? Tradition. Funny thing is I'm willing to bet a lot of white folk in the south who are "outraged" by the name redskins and say tradition is a lame excuse will use tradition to defend that flag still being flown in Mississippi. Rebel flags need to go in the same direction as all Of this. But that's another discussion.

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I didn't lump you into anything, merely punting out that whomever Snyder brings to a game is besides the point. Either the name is a racial slur, or it isn't. It most clearly is...... end of argument. There is no gray area here.

I didn't lump you into anything, merely punting out that whomever Snyder brings to a game is besides the point. Either the name is a racial slur, or it isn't. It most clearly is...... end of argument. There is no gray area here.

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Uh.....there was an argument?

I didn't know we reached that point in discourse, but okay, sure, whatever.